Published: July 5, 2022
Employees pose for photo on bridge

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Inclusive Hiring Practices for Faculty and Staff Program has received the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) 2022 Inclusion Cultivates Excellence Award.

This award recognizes and celebrates institutional initiatives and programs that have made a significant impact with respect to inclusive and equitable workplace practices, particularly those that have brought about cultural change throughout the organization. Thanks to the generous support of EyeMed, CUPA-HR is pleased to offer a $5,000 contribution to the University of Colorado Boulder’s endowment fund or a scholarship selected by the recipients.

The goal of the Inclusive Hiring Practice for Faculty and Staff Program was to develop a research-based, industry-leading approach to training, and a way to support more inclusive search practices on the Boulder campus. The program also aims to ensure every person involved in the hiring process has received training and/or has an inclusive search expert working directly with them throughout the search process.

The outcomes of the program have shown an overall increase in employees of color on campus in addition to an increase in the number of diverse applicants and hires applying for faculty appointments. Andy Horovitz, CU Boulder’s director of talent acquisition shared in the program’s nomination, “Data has been a powerful tool for our campus to see the effects of our training and expertise to help yield a broader pool of candidates for our search processes and the outcomes of increasing employees of color on campus. While our HR team has always been fully integrated into supporting staff searches for the campus, being involved with faculty hiring was a big change. Because of our work with DEI training for faculty hiring committees, faculty have requested additional consultation and collaboration with HR on all aspects of the search process.”

About CUPA-HR

CUPA-HR is higher ed HR. We serve higher education by providing the knowledge, resources, advocacy and connections to achieve organizational and workforce excellence. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, and serving more than 33,000 HR professionals and other campus leaders at nearly 2,000 member institutions and organizations around the country and abroad, the association offers learning and professional development programs, higher education workforce data, extensive online resources and just-in-time regulatory and legislative information.